


Burn

by moonflowers



Category: Downton Abbey, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, I don't know what I'm doing, I'll update tags as I go, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1932825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowers/pseuds/moonflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thomas is Transfiguration professor, Jimmy is an authority on dragons, and I need to work harder at writing decent summaries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had notes for this for ages, and I've been having a bit of a drarry revival of late, so here we are. I'm aiming for this to be kinda short and silly. HP AUs are hard, man. Everyone's headcanon varies so much - I hope I don't balls it up too bad.
> 
> This takes places more or less at the time of the '19 years later' business in HP. I had to mess with ages a little, or the background characters would be no fun at all.

Thomas Barrow approached the door to his classroom, narrowing his eyes at the line of rowdy third years waiting for him outside, and inwardly groaned at their noise. They were his least favourite age group to teach – too old to be easily intimidated into behaving and still too young to know when they’d crossed a line. No respect. But he did happen to have a soft spot for that particular year group; they’d started Hogwarts together. Well, technically he had returned to teach as the Transfiguration professor, but it was a different thing entirely to the time he’d spent there as a student. He cleared his throat loudly when he reached the door, and the children managed to gain enough control of themselves to be quiet for a moment.

“Thank you. Now get in,” he jerked his head in the direction of the door, “and wands away please,” he raised his voice over the inevitable groan from his class that would always follow that request, “we’ll be starting off today by reviewing chapter five of Clearwater’s ‘Modern Guide to Transfiguration.’” He followed the last student in and shut the door, taking his place at the front of the classroom while the children fussed around taking their seats, and making a great show of getting their text books out.

“Quiet down, you lot,” he said with a sigh as he waved his wand at the blackboard, notes for the lesson appearing on cue. He could swear he’d never been so bloody excitable first thing in the mornings when he was at school. “I said wands away,” he glared at Scorpius Malfoy, “that means you too, Mr Malfoy.”

The boy returned the dirty look but did as he was told, all the while muttering something about his father. Thomas mentally rolled his eyes and took out his own copy of the text. _Your father is a prick,_ he thought to himself, based on his limited dealings with the man. Though Thomas _had_ always preferred blondes. 

“Right then. Who can tell me the two basic rules to keep in mind when transfiguring non-metals to metals?”

*

Thomas often tried to get to lunch early, in the hopes that he could chose a seat at the staff table from which to conveniently overhear anything important the other professors might be saying. He wouldn’t call it eavesdropping exactly… just an old habit. It was always advantageous to be on top of the goings on in the school. Fortunately there was still a seat available that wasn’t next to Bates or Longbottom. Self-righteous do-gooders, the pair of them. O’Brien wasn’t there either – probably lurking up in the rafters with her cards and crystals. As a rule, Thomas got on alright with the Divination professor, but still thought the subject itself was a load of bollocks, no matter how many times she offered to read his tea leaves. He ended up next to Professor Lovegood in the end, one of the few he harboured a secret and unexplainable soft spot for that he would never admit to out loud if he could help it. 

“Afternoon, Luna,” he said, shaking out the pages of the Prophet he hadn’t had the chance to read at breakfast. Trouble at the ministry. How original. 

“Oh, hello Thomas,” she said with her usual faint air of surprise, “how’s your morning been?” 

“Same old. Yours?”

“Quite lovely,” she smiled, and bit into a tomato, “and I’ve got a guest coming to speak to my class about dragons after lunch, so that’s something to look forward to.”

“Oh fuck, it’s not Hagrid is it?” said Thomas before he could stop himself. He remembered his own Care of Magical Creatures classes only too vividly. Bloody blast-ended skrewts. 

She shook her head fondly. “That wasn’t very polite, Thomas. And no, it’s not Hagrid. Although,” she snapped a carrot stick in half, “I wish it were. He has such an enthusiasm for dragons, it’s ever so endearing.”

“…If you say so.”

“This fellow who is coming, I know nothing about at all.” She stood, brushing crumbs from her lap. “I’d best go and set up. Come and listen to him talk later, if you’ve the time.” She smiled again and absently patted his head as she made her way back outside, “lovely speaking to you.” 

He noticed Bates roll his eyes at Luna’s last comment, and made sure to ask loudly if the other professor still got any trouble about that nasty murder trial he'd been involved in a few years back.

*

Thomas did happen to have some free time that afternoon. The marking he’d set the time aside for didn’t take as long as he’d anticipated – first year essays, absolutely abysmal – so he wandered out to the grounds for a smoke and to catch the tail end of the talk from Luna’s mysterious dragon specialist. 

Professor Lovegood was partial to teaching her Care of Magical Creatures class at whatever location took her fancy – a classroom if she was feeling exceptionally ordinary, or by the lake, and she sometimes took the older students to the edges of the forest. She’d once taken a class to the second floor girl’s bathroom to chat to Moaning Myrtle about her experiences with basilisks. Though Thomas very much doubted basilisks required a great deal of care, he was sure Myrtle had appreciated the attention. Headmaster Carson didn’t seem to mind where Luna taught, as long as she got in the way of none of the other teachers. Today though, the lesson took place in its scheduled location – out on the grounds, by Hagrid’s old hut. Thomas didn’t much like going there; in his sixth year he’d had a nasty encounter with a kelpie the old professor had managed to dredge up from God knows where, and the memory lingered. 

Thomas had missed the talk itself, but was in time to witness the excruciating business of the obligatory question and answer session that followed. The talk had been planned mainly with the fifth and sixth years in mind as they were starting to think about their careers, but a few others with an apparent interest in the subject had tagged along, and were sprawling in various states of attentiveness on the warm grass. Thomas stood at the back with Luna, and several of the students close by gave him wary looks or shuffled away. How pleasing. 

“Hello Thomas,” she said serenely, and offered him a paper bag, “Every Flavour Bean?” 

“No thanks,” in general, Thomas had a rather sweet tooth, but he never quite trusted those damn beans. 

“I was hoping you’d come,” she said, popping a alarmingly violet bean in her mouth, “I believe you were in school at the same time as our guest, Mr Kent,” she nodded to the front of the class, where the dragon specialist was scowling at a student in the front row.

“Of course it’s bloody real, do you think I’d give myself burn scars for the fun of it?”

The rest of the class giggled and Thomas himself snorted, as the Gryffindor boy who’d asked the question looked sheepish. He tried to place this undeniably handsome man somewhere in his memories of his school days. Mr Kent… Kent… Oh. Jimmy Kent. He’d been in Slytherin too, a few years below Thomas. He recalled him vaguely as a sulky, pouting boy who’d thought the world of himself, and a bit too young for Thomas to fancy, or indeed pay much attention to at all, at the time. Now though… frankly, he was gorgeous. Toned and sun-kissed, taller and blonder than Thomas remembered, but just as irritable, judging by the pout currently aimed at the students asking him stupid questions. On one side of his neck and at his right wrist, where his robes ended, the skin was pinker, tight and shining, the evidence of old run-ins with dragons. He clenched his own injured hand in unconscious empathy. 

“Yes, you,” Jimmy Kent jerked his head at another student, indicating they should ask their question. 

“Do you know my Uncle Charlie?” came the unsurprising question from a red-headed girl. 

Jimmy rolled his eyes, and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like a derisive comment concerning Weasley offspring. “Yes, I know Charlie Weasley. Everybody who works with dragons knows Charlie ruddy Weasley. Don’t they teach you anything here?” Thomas smiled, and briefly wondered why they hadn’t thought to send someone who was better with children to talk to a bunch of students. 

“And my cousin Alfred too?” the child ploughed on, “he’s always talking about his silly friend Jimmy –“

“I think that’s about all we’ve got time for,” Luna said, barely raising her voice but getting the full attention of her pupils all the same. “I’m sure you’ll all join me in thanking Mr Kent for his enlightening stories on what it’s like working with one our most misunderstood magical creatures.” A few of the children looked at her in bafflement, and Thomas wondered if she was really much better than Hagrid after all. After murmuring their thanks, the students began to disperse and wander back up to the castle. Out of impulse and mild curiosity, Thomas went over to Mr Kent. They had been at school together, it would be rude not to say hello…

“Interesting talk,” he said drily, though he’d actually missed most of it.

Mr Kent snorted, “thanks. Though I don’t think the little shits were listening to a word I said.” A Ravenclaw girl still gathering up her books shot him a wounded look. 

“I’m sorry to say it,” said Thomas, “but I believe most of them may have been here to get out of doing any real work, rather than to actually learn anything about dragons from your good self.”

“Right. And you?” said Jimmy, packing up models of dragon eggs and various scale samples of different breeds he’d brought to show the class.

“And me, what?” Thomas found he very much wanted to touch the dragon-scarred skin at the base of Jimmy’s neck.

“Are you here to get out of work, or are you interested in dragons?”

“Neither,” said Thomas, “though I may be more inclined towards the subject, when it’s you giving the lesson.”

Jimmy turned to look at him, hand on hip, and Thomas couldn’t figure out if it was a look of interest Jimmy was giving him, or if he was utterly unimpressed. He was out of practice, it seemed. “Is that so?”

“I teach Transfiguration,” he said, instead of answering the question. “Thomas Barrow.”

“Yes,” Jimmy said, with what Thomas optimistically thought was the hint of a smirk, “I remember you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I haven’t updated this since July, what a tart. I started re-reading Harry Potter last week, and thought I’d better pull my finger out and actually get this done. Enjoy my casual butchering of HP canon; I’m aware some of the students ages etc don’t quite match up. Hopefully you won’t have to wait eight months for the next chapter.

“Five points from Hufflepuff.”

“Aww but sir,” Teddy Lupin protested, hair reverting back from vivid red to the shade of turquoise he usually favoured, “what for?”

“Mr Lupin,” said Thomas, looking over the top of the textbook he was pretending to read at the boy who was blatantly cheating at the task he had set the class, “if you rely on your… unusual abilities alone to alter your appearance, you will never become adept at the spells that accompany facial and bodily transfiguration, will you.”

“But if I can just use my ‘unusual abilities’ sir, then I won’t need to use the spells, will I.”

“Don’t be cheeky, Lupin. And I want to see you making an effort, or I’ll be adding an extra ten inches of parchment to your essay. Besides,” he said coolly, “I don’t think the exam board would take that same attitude, do you?”

Lupin grumbled and his friends sniggered, but they did as they were told and went back to practising facial transfiguration spells – just eyebrows to begin with, as was customary. 

Embarrassingly, self-transfiguration was one of Thomas’ weakest points. One of his professors during his own time at Hogwarts had suggested that Thomas was far too self-absorbed to wish to appear to be anyone but himself, rendering a thoroughly convincing transformation unlikely. A load of bollocks in Thomas’ opinion. But to this day, though he was of course capable enough of transforming his own face, there were sometimes cracks in the spellwork if you looked too closely. He wasn’t about to let the kids see that, though.

Glancing up at the class to ensure that everyone was doing what they were meant to be, he turned his attention back to the textbook and beginnings of a lesson plan on his desk. But the words wouldn’t come, so he pushed the papers aside and took out his pocket watch instead. The lesson would be over in five minutes, and he couldn’t really bring himself to care. Instead, his thoughts wandered inexplicably to Jimmy Kent. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember an awful lot about Jimmy from school, other than the odd glimpse of him at breakfast, or in the common room. Not that it mattered much; he was far more concerned about Jimmy in the present than the past. Though he supposed that didn’t really matter much either – it wasn’t likely he’d be seeing him again anytime soon. It was just one of those unexpected and vaguely interesting coincidences that he would have pushed from his mind altogether in a few days. But still, if he wasn’t planning on seeing him again, then letting his mind stray to less than proper thoughts concerning him wouldn’t matter, would it? How his thick, gold hair would be just divine to hold on to, his chapped lips lovely to take between his teeth…  
But then Teddy chose to disrupt his thoughts by morphing his face into a near perfect copy of Thomas’ own, and he had to stop his increasingly lewd thoughts to take a further ten points from Hufflepuff.

*

That afternoon, Thomas was yet again marking school work. It was all he ever seemed to do these days, much to the detriment of his poor abandoned social life. Though in all honesty, he’d spent quite enough time socialising in his days with Philip, and the years since he’d become a teacher were a welcome and necessary distraction from the mess that had become.   
The homework he was marking was mainly from the fifth years, and so not utterly abysmal. The Weasley girl’s essay was nearly as good as anything he could have written himself, as usual. Then came Mr Scamander, one of Luna’s boys. Always an interesting read, though not entirely on topic. Miss MacClare’s work was good enough, though written in a shimmering pink ink that made his eyes hurt. She was bright, but typically spent more time looking at her mirror than her books, and her list of social engagements made Thomas’ look even more pathetic in comparison.   
Half an hour later – and the pile of unmarked work still annoyingly large – he stood to make himself some well-deserved tea. His plans were scuppered however when an unfamiliar patronus appeared in front of his desk. It took the form of some sort of cat, with tufted ears and an extremely large fluffy tail. Who on earth did he know who’d have such a thing?

“Mr Barrow,” the message began, and Thomas nearly dropped the teaspoon in surprise when he recognised the deep voice with its round, northern vowels, “if you were serious when you said you wouldn’t mind knowing more about dragons, I’d be happy to offer my services. I’m free this afternoon, if it’s convenient for you. I’ll meet you in the entrance hall in twenty minutes. Jimmy Kent.”

The patronus dissolved into silver wisps, leaving Thomas staring blankly at the space it had been. Before he could think too much on it, he sent a charm of his own to Jimmy in the affirmative and set about tidying himself up a bit, marking be damned. While he did so, he tried to deduce what he could about Jimmy from his patronus. At first glance it was nothing more than a cat, an exceedingly common patronus form, that wouldn’t stand out from countless others until under close scrutiny. But there was a theatricality to it, a flamboyance in its fluffy ears and tail. There was defiance in its puffed out chest, though its movements remained somewhat delicate. Interesting.

He found Jimmy waiting for him downstairs, leaning against the wall close by the great front doors, eyeing passing students with disdain. But his expression became much more pleasant when he noticed Thomas drawing closer. 

“Mr Barrow,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Mr Kent,” they shook hands. Jimmy’s palm was rough and warm, and exactly how Thomas had expected it to be.

“Your patronus is quite… unusual,” Jimmy said with a teasing smile. 

Thomas sniffed. He’d gotten all manner of ridiculous and misinformed comments over the fact that his patronus took the form of a unicorn. “I happen to quite like it, actually.”

“Well, it was rather nice to look at,” Thomas didn’t miss the way Jimmy’s eyes flicked over his body – he’d been on the lookout for it – and he stood a little straighter. “Shall we?” They walked in comfortable silence until they reached the edges of the school grounds and slipped out of the gate. As soon as they were outside the castle boundaries, Jimmy held out his arm.

 

“And where might we be going exactly?” Thomas looked sceptically at Jimmy’s offered arm. He hated side-along apparition. Though it was more of a trust issue than anything else, the sensation was somehow even more unpleasant than when executed alone. 

“Take my arm and you’ll see,” said Jimmy with a neat little smirk that suggested he very much enjoyed holding the upper hand, even in this small way. A man after Thomas’ own heart.

“Ugh, Merlin have mercy,” Thomas muttered as he closed his fingers carefully around Jimmy’s forearm. “If I get splinched, I’ll turn you into a teapot.”

“You won’t be,” Jimmy said curtly, looking a little offended at the insinuation. But before Thomas could reply, he disapparated. 

The sensation was just as unpleasant as expected, and Thomas stumbled a little when they landed, with a groan of displeasure he was unable to hold back. He let go of Jimmy’s arm and took a deep breath, trying to rein in the typical wave of nausea. When he straightened, Jimmy was looking at him with some amusement.

“Don’t travel well?”

Thomas narrowed his eyes and straightened up, not keen on revealing any weakness in front of Jimmy, no matter how small or inconsequential it may seem. “No.” He looked about them, belatedly aware of how hot it was. The ground beneath their feet was dusty and scattered with loose pebbles, great towering pillars of craggy rock clawing up at the empty sky. It was… definitely not Scotland.

“Jimmy… how far did we just apparate?”

“We’re still in Europe, don’t worry,” he said as though it was commonplace. 

“…Alright.” 

Jimmy smiled, wide and open, and Thomas’ knees buckled and his head spun and every other possible cliché that was associated with witnessing sheer beauty. How irritating. “This way,” he turned and begun to leisurely walk through the rocks.

“So Mr Kent,” said Thomas as they wound their way through the dusty landscape, “why dragons?” Not a particularly insightful opener, but they had to begin somewhere.

Jimmy snorted, “I’d had enough of bits of paper. Thought I’d try something a bit more exciting.”

“Well you certainly found it,” said Thomas, eyeing the burn down the side of Jimmy’s neck.

“I got a little more than I bargained for once or twice,” he shrugged and paused, peering around the edge of a rock to check his direction, frowning and making a sharp right turn, “but I don’t think I’d swap it for nothing.”

“Really? There’s nothing you don’t like about it?”

“My colleagues, perhaps,” he frowned. “Some of the blokes I work with are big tough buggers. They like to take the piss a bit from time to time. Don’t like me much, I suppose,” he finished with a slightly unconvincing smile.

“Well I like you.” Thomas was never one to turn down an opportunity when it presented itself. From past experience, such a comment would mark the point where Jimmy would either kiss him or hit him. He actually did neither, and Thomas wasn’t sure whether he should be relieved or disappointed. 

“If you do you’re on your own,” he laughed. 

“No family?” said Thomas, trying to regain his footing in the conversation.

“No,” Jimmy replied, stopping abruptly at the foot of a steep slope fringed with straggly, thorny plants. “You’ve heard of the Anstruthers?”

“Of course.” Thomas’ knowledge of pureblood families was exemplary, thank you very much.

“Well, me mum used to work for Lady Anstruther, and when she died, the good lady herself offered to pay my way. She was as good as her word, and several long-winded health and safety forms later, here I am.”

“All sounds rather bleak,” said Thomas, bemoaning the state of his fitness as he clambered up the slope next to Jimmy. He was embarrassingly short of breath.

“Nah, it’s not all doom and gloom. I spend Christmas and such with me mate Alfred and his family. Though his mum’s a Weasley, so they’re never very quiet affairs. Unfortunately,” he finished wryly, before suddenly stilling, holding out an arm to stop Thomas. “Quiet.”

Thomas prickled at being given orders by a man he’d only spoken to twice. “Alright.”

They’d reached the top of the slope, and Jimmy motioned him forward to the edge. They were unnervingly high up, the vast rocky landscape stretched our below them. But that wasn’t all. A large green dragon was sunning itself on a distant ledge. Despite its size and vivid colour, Thomas probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all if Jimmy hadn’t pointed it out. 

“Oh.” Thomas didn’t know what to say – he’d not seen one so close before. Sometimes, despite all the beings that inhabited their world, there were still the odd few that caught him by surprise with their magnificence. And that these great beasts, sinuous and gleaming with bright plated scales and immense wings, were not just a thing of fairy tales, was somewhat baffling. He turned to look at Jimmy, who was already watching him, smiling slightly. 

“I know.” He looked to the ground. “Let’s sit down for a bit.”

They did so, not close enough to touch, but it wasn’t done with a conscious effort. They watched the great beast in silence for a while, the sun hot on their faces and the sky impossibly empty. 

“I call him Carson,” said Jimmy after a while.

“What?”

“The dragon,” he nodded towards where the green dragon lay stretched out on the rocks.

“After the headmaster?” Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“Of course.”

“Mm, I can see the similarity.”

With a great rush of air that made Thomas flinch, another dragon flew overhead, alighting below them on the craggy rock face. Jimmy tensed and sat up straighter, putting a hand around Thomas’ wrist as though to keep him from moving.

“Careful,” he said, not taking his eyes off the newly arrived dragon. It was blue, and somewhat smaller than the green one, but it seemed much more agitated, sharper and faster in its movements. 

“Thank you,” said Thomas dryly, staring at where Jimmy’s fingers enclosed his wrist, “that hadn’t occurred to me.”

“I mean it,” said Jimmy, still somewhat in work mode but relaxing a little and moving his hand away when it became clear the dragon hadn’t noticed them, “watch yourself. They’re bloody unpredictable. Never know what they’re going to do next, nasty buggers.”

“Oh?” said Thomas, wondering how Jimmy felt about smoking and if he could get away with lighting up. He bloody needed one. “That seems rather harsh, coming from someone who’s made a career out of them.”

“Maybe,” Jimmy’s eyes were still on the dragon, and though his focus was sort of endearing, Thomas found himself absurdly jealous. “Yes, they’re dangerous, but I love them all the same.”

“Right,” said Thomas quietly, and followed Jimmy’s line of vision to where the small, vividly blue dragon was now snaking its way up a rock face.

“She’s my favourite,” said Jimmy quietly, not taking his eyes from the beast as it scaled the cliff.

“You have favourites?”

“You don’t?”

Thomas thought back on the long list of students he taught each day, concluding that yes, some were definitely preferable to others. “I s’pose I might.”

“She’s the one who gave me this,” Jimmy touched the burn scar on his neck with the tips of his fingers. Thomas wondered what the damaged skin would feel like under his own touch.

“And she’s still your favourite? You’re mad.”

“She was only a baby,” said Jimmy with a frown that Thomas was sure he shouldn’t have found so delightful, “and she was scared.”

“Watch yourself. You sound awfully like Hagrid you know.”

Jimmy snorted and shoved him lightly. “Oh, give over.” Thomas grinned, until Jimmy’s face fell back into something more serious. “What about yours then?”

“My what?”

“Scar.”

Thomas clenched his hand before he could stop himself. “Who says I’ve got one?”

“It’s a guess, mostly,” Jimmy admitted, “but I doubt that glove is just for decoration, as lovely and mysterious it might look on you.”

The sort-of compliment escaped Thomas’ noticed as he looked down at his left hand, the familiar black leather pulled tight over his palm. It wasn’t a memory he cared to dredge up often, and perhaps it was stupid to be talking to Jimmy about things so personal so soon, but he couldn’t help himself. “I… got into a bit of a scuffle in my fifth year. A couple of seventh years took a disliking to me, and it escalated.” It began and ended, as it often had, with blood status and house pride and whether or not Thomas was worthy of his place in Slytherin. But it was an ugly subject and an old wound, and Thomas didn’t much care to put a downer on the so far pleasant evening with it. “In the end, one of them shot a curse at me in the corridor. I moved out of the way, but not quite fast enough. It caught my hand. Took Madam Pomfrey a week to put it to rights, and even then she didn’t quite manage it.”

“I see.” Jimmy looked as though he were teetering on the edge of asking something more. “Why do you cover it? It can’t be that bad.”

“I don’t know,” Thomas pursed his lips. “It started out as a habit… I thought it quite ugly I suppose, and I didn’t care to look at it. But then I began teaching, and to keep it covered was easier than all the tedious questions students would find to ask.”

“Makes sense,” Jimmy conceded, pulling at a strand of withered grass that poked up between the rocks. “I used to think my scars were ugly too. Went to terrible lengths to cover them up – I was rather vain, you see.” Thomas snorted at his use of the past tense. Over the past couple of hours they’d been together, he’d noticed the way Jimmy would pause to run careful fingers through his hair to smooth it back into place, and the way his eyes had lingered on his own reflection when he’d caught sight of it in the mirror in the entrance hall. He was a peacock if there ever was one. “But I wasn’t much good at the spells. After a time, I started to like them, almost. Some days I still think they make me ugly, but they’re a part of me whether I like it or not.”

“I don’t think they’re ugly,” said Thomas without thinking. “I think they’re rather dashing.”

Jimmy laughed. “Thank you. I’m not so sure about that, but thanks all the same.”

It began to grow dark, last rays of the sun catching on the dragons’ hides, glittering like light on water, or jewels. When Thomas looked away, and up to the sky, the stars had come out. It was suddenly a great deal colder, and the few feet between he and Jimmy felt rather too much. It occurred to him then that he had no idea what to call the little… outing Jimmy had taken him on. Was it a date? It certainly felt like one. But then again, any other date Thomas had been on, they’d been half naked by this point, so perhaps not.

“I should be getting back,” he said, hoping to glean Jimmy’s perspective on the matter from his response. 

“Alright,” Jimmy blinked, hair ruffled by the light breeze that had come when the sun went down. He stood, brushing dust from his robes, and offered his arm as he had earlier. Thomas could have easily managed to get back to Hogwarts on his own, but he wasn’t about to turn down the chance to touch him again. 

They said goodnight on the front steps of the castle, and though they didn’t kiss, or even agree to see each other again, the smile Jimmy gave him as they parted was enough to keep him buoyant, enough to give him hope. That night he dreamt of bright stars and dragon fire, their light both cold and hot catching Jimmy and making him shine.


End file.
